Deis, Safe Streets consultant trade jabs over tax plan

STOCKTON - City Manager Bob Deis lashed out Tuesday at claims recently made by members of the Stockton Safe Streets coalition and called a key player behind the sales-tax proposal an "ex-con."

Scott Smith

STOCKTON - City Manager Bob Deis lashed out Tuesday at claims recently made by members of the Stockton Safe Streets coalition and called a key player behind the sales-tax proposal an "ex-con."

Deis' criticism, and the sharp response from political consultant Allen Sawyer calling Deis "a liar," has turned a debate over Stockton's crime-fighting strategies into name calling.

The flare-up followed a panel discussion Friday on the Safe Streets proposal that would ask voters to raise sales taxes by half a cent to hire more than 100 police and bolster other criminal justice efforts.

The panelists, among others, included Mayor Anthony Silva and William Bratton, a former Los Angeles and New York City police chief. Sawyer led the panel discussion at Bear Creek Community Church in Lodi.

Among controversial statements, Sawyer and his cohorts said their restricted tax will fund the city's crime strategy - the Marshall Plan - leaving Police Chief Eric Jones to decide how best to deploy officers.

Deis called their position disingenuous. He compared the most recent draft of the tax proposal with the comments panelists reportedly made in the symposium.

"This is all about micromanaging the city, and it's all about telling us how to police the city," Deis said in an interview. "It's grounded in failed ideas and self ideologies."

The narrowly worded tax proposal, if passed by two-thirds of voters, would force the city to cut 50 percent of all departments other than police, Deis said.

Before filing for bankruptcy, the city already cut all city departments outside of public safety by 43 percent. The Fire Department would not be immune to harm, he said.

Developer Anthony Barkett, who was also on the panel, had said Stockton shouldn't rush out of bankruptcy, allaying fears that the tax proposal could delay the city's pending Chapter 9.

It would be folly for Stockton to let its case linger, Deis said, because the judge may see that as acting in bad faith and eject the city from bankruptcy court at a cost of $22 million, which the city doesn't have.

Deis next set his sights on Sawyer, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to honest services mail fraud in a federal case that sent him, then-Sheriff Baxter Dunn and former lawman Monte McFall to prison.

Sawyer and Dunn were exonerated in 2010 under an extraordinary measure called a writ of coram nobis. Such a writ corrects a mistake or factual error after a trial, where there's no other legal remedy.

In Sawyer's case, the U.S. Supreme Court narrowed the meaning of mail fraud, exempting the behavior Sawyer pleaded guilty to from the criminal conduct. Sawyer said that means he never committed a crime.

That didn't stop Deis from impugning Sawyer.

Deis cited a blog post by Record columnist Michael Fitzgerald in which Sawyer was quoted joking that proceeds from selling Stockton Safe Streets T-shirts for $25 each will go into a fund paying Deis' moving expenses.

"I find it ironic that an ex-con is trying to raise money to run me out of town," Deis said. "And an ex-con is moderating a panel on how to reduce crime."

Deis said he is not bashing the mayor, who also backs the sales tax proposal. Rather, the city manager said he takes his orders from a majority of the City Council, which voted 4-3 to oppose the initiative.

Sawyer first responded to the personal attack, saying that he was cleared and Deis knows it. All of the corruption charges were tossed out of court, he said.

"I didn't get so much as a parking ticket," said Sawyer, next taking a tone as if addressing Deis directly. "Keep going down your road of division. ... Your strategies are working fantastic. Keep it up."

Sawyer threw his own punch, saying Deis is distorting language in the tax proposal, which Sawyer insists does not dictate to the police chief how to do his job.

"There's not an ounce of policing strategy in this," Sawyer said. "This is a funding plan only. Bob Deis is a liar."

Sawyer accused Deis of leading a 25 percent reduction to the Police Department, gutting officer morale and leaving the streets of Stockton ridden with crime.

Councilwoman Kathy Miller also countered public statements from Safe Streets organizers that they had invited Deis and each of the seven council members to Friday's symposium.

That was not true, she said, because she wasn't invited to the event, which was free but required a ticket.

"They have been very careful to make sure they have just included supporters," said Miller, who learned about the event from a reporter's call.

Council members Dyane Burgos, Elbert Holman and Moses Zapien also told The Record they were not invited.

Vice Mayor Paul Canepa said Sawyer invited him, but Canepa had to work Friday at his family car wash. Councilman Michael Tubbs had said in advance of the symposium that he too was invited, but he did not attend.

Miller said the Safe Streets architects consistently say the council members refuse to work with them. What they really mean is that the council doesn't agree with their strategy, she said.

"We've all been willing to sit down and talk with them," Miller said. "They have failed to convince us to change our position. Those are two different things."